Does a messy desktop show commitment to the job?

What does your PC desktop say about you? A lot, according to recommendations site Hunch.com.

The company carried out a survey of its users and found that those with messy desktops tend to be career-minded city-dwellers, while it's the home-living suburbanites who keep things neat and tidy.

Men, says the company, are 13 percent more likely to have a neat desktop, and older users are likely to be messier. Untidy PC users are also seven percent more likely to have completed a four-year college degree and 19 percent more likely to have a graduate degree. They're also 12 percent more likely to have a liberal political outlook.

"Who else is more likely to have a messy desktop? The same people who live in crowded, messy cities," says the company on its blog.

"Hunch users with messy desktops are 42 percent more likely than those with neat desktops to live in an urban environment. Hunch users with neat desktops are nine percent more likely to live in the suburbs and 13 percent more likely to live in a rural area."

But, perhaps counterintuitively, having a messy desktop could be a point in your favor when it comes to dealing with the boss. If you ever get ticked off for having a disorganized PC, try pointing to the Hunch.com figures.

Apparently, people with neat desktops are five percent more likely to say their personal life takes priority over their work, and 10 percent more likely to say they work just to pay the bills.

Those with messy desktops are nine percent more likely to say work is an important part of their lives and that it sometimes calls for personal trade-offs.